Opinion by: Dr. Michael Tabone, senior economist for cointelegraph
Bitcoin (Btc) Mining has long been dominated by major operations in the industry, along with public companies such as marathon digital, cleanspark and riot platforms that control significant parts of the global hashrate. But what if the balance of power moves? What if millions of individuals throughout industrialized countries take home mining homes?
Home Bitcoin Miners
This hypothetical scenario is not as far as it seems, especially with the increasing small, great Asics Like the Bitaxe Gamma 601, Futurebit Apollo, Ipollo V1 Mini BTC and Antminer S9 SE/Hyrdo, which provides a home hash strength from 1.2 to 17 tehashes per second. Some Bitcoin’s solo miners of Bitcoin have also had won blocksincluding those in January 29 and January 30, 2025. So, what if every Bitcoiner in the United States, or even in industrialized countries, ran a solo miner?
If every Bitcoin holder in the US (Approximately 67 Millions of residents) Alone is the single lowest hash rate-making of the miner from the list, the network gets about 80.4 exahashes per second (eh/s), which is a huge help to the global network, but it is not clear to surpass giant corporations.
Let’s get it more. If every Bitcoin holder in industrialized countries, including Europe (31 million), Japan (3.7 million), South Korea (15.6 million) and Australia (approximately 5 million) joins, the combined hashrate will reach a surprisingly 146.76 eh/s, significant boost of existing global hashrate (see 1).
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Global Bitcoin Hashrate (up to January 30, 2025): 835.04 eh/s
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Change of percentage to US miners: (80.4 eh/s ÷ Â 235.04 eh/s) × 100 ≈ 9.63%
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Changing percentage in Industrial Countries: (146.76 eh/s ÷ 2835.04 eh/s) × 100
≈ 17.57%
The Bitcoin Network hashrate percentage of change in US and industrial countries – Source: Dr. Michael Tabone.
What does this mean for bitcoin?
Industrial mining companies need to compete against a truly decentralized mining force. Without single creatures to control mining control, the Bitcoin security model will be strengthened against state-level attacks, regulating or regulating Corporate collusion. A widely distributed hashrate will remove concerns Censorship driven by miner and made bitcoin immune to government crackdowns.
Recently: Monthly Bitcoin making decreases as miners fight the rising hashrate
Network security will reach uninterrupted levels, labor 51% attack Unable to stop financially. However, such an increase in mining participation will also introduce important challenges, especially with energy consumption, access and incentives.
The practical barriers to solo mining
Despite the benefits, many factors are not likely that every bitcoiner in an industrialized country will set a Solo operation operation. One of the most upright barriers is cost. Even small, good miners like Bitaaxe Gamma have an upward price tag of $ 180- $ 220, which, while reasoning for some, still brings a financial barrier for many.
Electric costs also vary widely through the region, making mining for high-cost energy markets.
Perhaps the most significant challenge, however, is the low possibility of rewards in a high environmental environment. Bitcoin mining is a lottery already. If millions -million new miners join, solo mining rewards will be more difficult. Most of the miners in the home today use mining pools to ensure a stable payment, but hoping for large pools introduces centralization risks.
The problem with chip sourcing
Although demand for mining at home explodes, a critical bottleneck remains in sourcing chips for making ASIC. The semiconductor industry is highly centralized, with only some foundry (such as TSMC and Samsung) capable of producing high-efficiency chips.
The problem is twice: the priority goes to the larger mining companies – Bitmain and MicRont – and other major players are safe bulk orders in advance. Geopolitical tensions, resource deficiencies and manufacturing barriers limit chip production.
Home mining will remain supply-contrained without alternative ASIC producers compared to industrial-scale operations. Domestic Asic Chip Production in the US can rise underneath Administration of President Donald Trumpthat can affect the ever -changing -new.
How ASIC prices will respond to mass demand
If millions of people suddenly want ASIC miners, prices are moving forward.
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Industry Asics (Antminer S19, WhatsMiner M50): Prices can be quadruple ($ 3,000 → $ 12,000+) due to chip deficiencies and high demand.
A short -term price explosion will occur due to supply chain barriers, but over time, manufacturing will be measured to address demand, stabilizing prices at a higher but reasonable level.
Will this be able to do this?
Although not a literal proposal, this thought experiment features a basic fact: the more individual bitcoin mining, the stronger and more decentralized the network. Solo Bitcoin mining ensures that mining remains distributed enough that some creatures do not predominate.
The Bitcoin security model succeeds in incentives, and as corporate miners currently play an important role, a advance of sovereign individuals running for home miners will be a game replacement. If even a portion of industrialized countries embraced small mining scale, the network would be more decentralized than today.
Will Bitcoiners push for greater mining adoption, or are industrial miners scale will continue to combine power? The future of Bitcoin’s decentralization may depend on the answer.
Opinion by: Dr. Michael Tabone, senior economist for cointelegraph.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be done as legal or investment advice. The views, attitudes, and opinions expressed here are unique and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of the cointelegraph.
